


there's no place like 127.0.0.1

by earlylight



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Spoilers through Mr. Robot Season 3, look i realise this is long but [jeb bush voice] please read, the rare crack x character study 2x combo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-12 20:02:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12967326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlylight/pseuds/earlylight
Summary: “Seriously? ‘Can I find a decent torrent’?” he repeats, indignant. “Sure, can Stephen Hawking teach a fifth grade science class? Shall I take my Ferrari down to pick up the kids from soccer practice? This is degrading. You confiscate my laptop, have me sit on my ass for the rest of the weekend twiddling my thumbs instead of working on Stage Two, and now you’re graciously permitting me computer access so I can type four words into a search bar on The Pirate Bay.”Between s3e04-05, Mr. Robot lies low at Angela’s for a long weekend. This is probably (not) how it went down.





	1. looking back

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be like a 2k one-shot of Angela and Robot painting each others' nails and talking about Feelings and somehow it spiralled wildly out of control. Fellas, I've created a monster - please feed it.

He nearly makes it through Friday when it finally happens.

It goes like this: Elliot’s phone, abandoned on the kitchen counter, lights up with an incoming call, edging along the marble benchtop on a slow surf of vibration. It’s not like he’s expecting anyone to phone in – Irving’s only liaising through Angela, per her request, he’s called in sick to work today, and Elliot sure doesn’t have any measure of a social life at this point – so he stills at the keys, a line of code left untethered, as Angela leans over him to scoop it up.

“Dolores… Haze?” she says, frowning, and suddenly he _feels_ —

—that lurch, vertigo – nerves curling up, burnt magnesium wire under his eyelids, flash-bright, flic _ker_ —

_—ing—hold it, fucki  n g,   h  o     l d—_

“—at me, breathe, you’re okay,” Angela is saying, hands cool against his cheeks, and he closes his eyes, sucks in a breath – grounds it, locks it down, letting hypoxia seep in, an induced slowdown of his heart – and then lets it out slow. Rinse and repeat. Once he thinks he’s anchored, a firewall of goddamn serenity against Elliot’s brute force attack, he opens his eyes again, holding Angela’s worried gaze.

“Still me,” he says, evenly, but he can’t help the exhaustion edging his voice. God, they’re so fucking close, a few days and change away from Stage 2 being complete, and Elliot is trying to take Easy Street and wring it out into a highwire act.

“Okay. Everything’s okay,” Angela mutters, almost more an affirmation for herself than for his benefit. She lets go of his face and picks up the phone where she last left it, face down on the bench. The call has since run to voicemail – or did Angela hang up? That moment’s lost to him, now, anyway – and she powers off the phone, sliding it into her pocket. “That’s staying off. We can’t afford any more close calls.”

Ha. _Close calls_. If there wasn’t a hydraulic press currently pulverizing his brain meat, he might appreciate that more. “Kid’s fucking restless, he’s trying to claw his way out of my skull,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Dolores Haze, that’s Darlene – there’s something going on with them.”

“You told me she tried to hack Elliot a few weeks back,” Angela clarifies.

“Yeah. I don’t know what side she’s playing at, or if she’s even playing a side, but I’m guessing Elliot really wants to talk to her right about now.”

“No contact with Darlene, then,” Angela says. “That’s simple enough. Hey—” she presses a firm hand to his wrist, where it’s strayed back to the Dark Army loaner, ready to key in the rest of the floating command. “Let’s stop there for today, okay?”

“I’m fine,” he lies, pushing it out through his teeth. His Elliot-induced headache bends the code in front of him, hooking swimmy lines off of their hinges. “I just need to finish up this set—”

Angela closes the lid of the laptop with a snap, barely allowing him the time to rescue his fingers. “No, you don’t, you’ve done enough. Look, we’re more than prepared for Monday. You need a break.”

“I said, I’m _fine,_ ” he growls, flipping the lid back up, only for her to snap it down again, holding it closed this time. “Angela, let me do my _fucking_ —”

— _static—_

“—need to calm down,” Angela says. He pushes out of the chair and gets up abruptly, shaking his head loose, walking it off. Too close. Too fucking close, _again,_ god, he can’t—he can’t keep doing this—

He feels Angela grab his shoulders, and meets her eyes. Blue like the sky (empty) or the ocean (empty), steady. Focused. “Listen to me. You need to calm down. I’m serious. When we were with Tyrell last night, he resurfaced because you were agitated, and if you keep getting worked up, _he is_ _going to keep coming back_. Coding the contingencies for Stage Two is only a side-project, and one that Tyrell can handle – your number one priority right now is to keep Elliot at bay. So, if we’re going to make it through this weekend, you need to relax. Do you understand?”

Phew, she can be fucking intense when she needs to be. It’s good to have her on his side. “Yes,” he replies begrudgingly. “Yes, okay. Relaxing. I can do that.”

 

***

 

He wakes up, slowly, senses ticking over one by one, loading up until his eyes open into a familiar-but-not-quite apartment. Somehow, he both feels like he’s been hit over the head with a truck, yet at the same time had the best sleep he’s ever experienced in the scattering of days where he’s been the one in charge. The sleeping pills on the side table aren’t a name he recognizes, and the instructional lettering is all in Chinese, but holy balls did they knock him the fuck out. Seems Angela wasn’t kidding when she said she was committed to keeping Elliot out at all costs.

Speaking of said high-strung micromanager, Angela’s already up, dressed smartly in suit pants and a blouse, fixing herself a coffee in the kitchen. “Hey, Elliot,” she says warmly, once she notices his head peeking up over the arm of the couch. “How are you feeling this morning? I’m thinking of making breakfast – do you want anything?”

 _Breakfast._ Morning call-and-response. Shit, what was the— “Barbecue ribs,” he calls back, after a beat. He scrubs his eyes with one hand, trying to clear some of the fogginess out of his head. “I hope you’re actually planning on making something because I am fucking starved. What time is it? Those pills you gave me practically sent me into a coma. It _is_ Saturday, right?”

“Still Saturday,” Angela confirms, the warmth in her tone dropped, back to being all business. She checks her phone. “And it’s—just gone five past nine. I was actually just going to head out to run some errands this morning, but I’ll be back around lunch, so just, help yourself to anything in the kitchen – I’ve got fruit, muesli, I think there’s a carton of Chinese in the fridge if that’s more to your interest.”

He groans, burying his face into the couch. “Angela, I’m going to be honest with you,” he tells the cushion. “This fucking blows.”

“I didn’t get any of that, but I assume it wasn’t important,” Angela says, very close to him now, and he rolls his head over to look up at six miles of the Ice Queen. “Don’t leave the apartment unless there’s an emergency, okay? And try to relax. I mean it. Don’t do anything that might bring Elliot back. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he says sourly.

“Good,” she replies, holding his gaze for a moment longer before turning away. “I’ll see you later.”

*

Residual self-image. Everyone has a face that only they can see, projected outwards into the mirror. A false idol of confidence, of ego, or a shell of dysmorphia and despair – either way, a lie repeated for so long it manifests into your own monster. Or maybe it’s something as little as a smaller nose or a slimmer waistline, look, ultimately, people like to reject reality and see what they want to see – for better or worse, ‘til death do us part, until every feature is stripped back and washed away, and that face in the mirror is just a skull the world has finally fucked. Technically, his own projection is long dead, but reanimated for a greater purpose – a divine one, even, according to Tyrell and his whole wackjob microreligion thing he’s got going on. Still, he only gets wrapped up in this metaphysical bullshit when he’s in the driver’s seat for an extended period of time, because situations tend to arise that take him on a stroll through Uncanny Valley. For example: he showers and then shaves, but no stubble leaves his jawline. He changes into fresh clothes that Angela has left him, but the label on his jacket still proudly proclaims _Mr. Robot: Computer Repair with a Smile!_ (still not his name, no matter how much Elliot tries to pin it to him). Sometimes he can squint through the mirror, rearrange his focus a little bit, and see this analogue of Elliot staring back at him – eyes half-lidded, the pinched anxiety on his face smoothed out. This is what _they_ all see, which really is a poor substitute for the damn good-looking guy he’s facing off with in the bathroom vanity this morning.

But getting all philosophically hot and heavy with his own reflection is mainly a distraction, and one sorely needed, because he’s not sure he actually, physically, knows how to relax. He’s not that guy – he’s built to burn the midnight oil, to power relentlessly forwards, grab a goal by the hips and fuck it into submission. The laptop sitting on the kitchen counter sings its siren call, so instead he grabs an apple from the fruit bowl, pares and then skewers it with a knife, chows down – grabs another, and a banana too, because Elliot has fucking horrendous nutrition, and _someone_ needs to take care of this body. He then proceeds to smoke two successive cigarettes out the window, but, hey, nobody’s perfect.

He tries watching TV, for a bit, but nothing particularly engaging is on basic cable on a Saturday morning – crappy cartoons (they really don’t make them like they used to), some more bullshit presidential candidate Donald Trump ( _seriously._ This, if anything, is why Stage Two is an absolute fucking necessity to get the world back on track) has regurgitated about taxes or something is being picked apart by no less than twelve ‘experts’ on CNN, and the hysteria continues on four other channels. Only one news channel is actually covering the upcoming UN vote, which is quintessential Americocentrism - like, holy shit, the UN is going to sell a fucking _country_ to China, and all people give a shit about is some failed reality star who can't, apparently, do math beyond a grade-school level. The next channel he tries is airing a repeat episode of _Teen Mom_ , which is about the point where he gives up and switches it off, tossing the remote somewhere down the couch.

Next to him, Qwerty floats aimlessly around his tank – trapped in a cube, all the world to be seen, all out of reach. “Me too, buddy,” he sighs, and grabs the bottle of betta chow, shaking a few pellets into his open palm.

There’s a series of heavy knocks at the door, and he freezes in mid-motion, fist full of fish food, poised over Qwerty’s tank. Shit. Did Angela forget her key, or something? He can’t verify it’s her, can’t ask if she’s expecting anyone today, because she’s taken away his phone, _fuck_.

Darlene’s voice comes through, slightly muffled by the door. “Angela! Hey! Can you stop skipping my fucking calls and let me in? I just want to talk.”

Goddamnit. If she doesn’t get a response, she’s going to pick the fucking lock. Sure enough, after a few moments he hears a scuffling around the doorknob. He can’t hide from this. He’s going to get caught, and right now Darlene trusts him about as far as she can throw him. What did Angela say was his tell? His eyes – he keeps contact, where Elliot’s skittish and slides them away – maybe he can trick her, make her think she’s still talking to Elliot. Maybe there’s a silver lining to this; that he can get to the bottom of whatever she and Elliot have been getting into. Maybe, maybe, maybe, he can’t deal with fucking Lady Luck right now, they’re too close. His head starts to throb again, Elliot pressing at his temple, and he sits shakily back down on the couch, he’s got to—

— _static_ —

—he’s got to remember, it’s not unusual for Elliot to be here. He and Angela are friends. Darlene doesn’t know about the arrangement between Angela and himself, all he needs is plausible deniability for the knock – sleeping pills on the side table, that’s it, that’s the play, if he bunks down on the couch she’ll believe he was so far under he didn’t hear any of it. Wake up, fidget a bit, Elliot-style – keep it vague, let her fill in the blanks—

“Excuse me, ma’am,” another voice says, outside the apartment. Female, elderly. “What are you doing?”

“I just locked my key in my apartment,” Darlene says. “God, I totally forgot I signed up for a Saturday shift and now I’m so late for work, I just rushed out, you know how it is.”

“Oh, honey, I think you’re on the wrong floor,” the stranger replies. “Oh, no, no, not to worry, used to happen to me all the time, especially if I’m all in a tizzy trying to keep up with life. I was wondering why I didn’t recognize you, I know all of my neighbors – see, this is Angela’s apartment, she’s a lovely young woman, got a very high position at E-Corp you know, so very accomplished for her age…”

“Wait, Angela Moss?” Darlene asks. “Oh, of course!  That’s why my dumb brain took me here instead of my apartment, we’re friends, she’s got my spare – do you know if she’s in?”

“Afraid not, love, I saw her heading out earlier as I was coming back from the mailroom,” the woman replies. “It looked like she was heading into work for the day – she was dressed very sharp, very professional, my, so dedicated, to work on a Saturday. That E-Corp must be running her ragged, with everything that’s going on these days – I’m so pleased building management has finally hired in some folk to deal with the garbage problem, my goodness, it was just the _stink_ , you know – such difficult times we’re living in—”

“Hey, did you by any chance see if her boyfriend was with her?” Darlene interrupts. “Short, kinda bug-eyed, usually wears a black hoodie. He might be able to help.”

“Oh, I didn’t know she had a boyfriend, isn’t that nice,” she says. “No, I haven’t seen him, but it’s good to have someone in your corner, isn’t it? Good for her. Well, it seems you’re plum out of luck my dear, but here, let me walk you out, I know a locksmith who can be here in a jiffy, very reliable, he’ll set you right—”

Their voices trail off as evidently the old woman walks Darlene to the elevator, or invites her into her cat-filled knitting den of iniquity for tea, or whatever, point is – thank fuck for nosy neighbors. Miracles like this are almost enough to make a guy believe in the intervention of a higher power. Hell, maybe even Tyrell was right – they _are_ gods.

Fuck it. If he can hold Elliot off through this, he’s strong enough to take anything else he can throw at him. He strides over to the kitchen and grabs the laptop off the counter, dumping it unceremoniously onto the dining room table, and powers it up. The string he was coding last night blinks back at him. Moves and countermoves – Elliot won’t win this match.

He smiles, stretching out his wrists, and places his fingers at the keys.

*

“Elliot? What are you doing in my apartment?”

He definitely does _not_ show any measure of startlement at the sound of her voice. If anything, his muscles just needed to shake loose the tension of being held in place for so long, _fuck,_ is that the time, did he really just spend three hours wired in?

“Cool your jets, it’s just me,” he replies after a moment, turning his gaze back down to finish up another line. He vaguely hears the clip of her heels against the tile of the kitchen, and the rustle of groceries being set down, and then there’s a presence at his side.

“Look at me,” Angela says. He sighs, looking up to meet her eyes, holding her stare until she’s satisfied he’s capable of maintaining eye contact to a socially acceptable level and is, therefore, not Elliot. “Okay. Finish up what you’re working on, and shut it down. You have until I finish putting the vegetables in the fridge, and then I’m taking that laptop back.”

She’s being very fucking bold, drawing a line like that. “You’re not my goddamn babysitter,” he growls. “I’m doing good work here, pretty important work, because in case you’ve conveniently forgotten, we have somewhat of a deadline we have to meet, and—”

“Yes, we do,” Angela interrupts, a little heat bleeding into her tone. He looks up to see her fix him with a look that could slice through steel like butter. She brandishes a carrot at him. “God, when I walked through that door and saw you there and for that one moment, I thought— it doesn’t matter. Elliot would’ve taken one look at what you were working on, and it would be game over. For _all of us_.”

“I _know_ , that’s why I set up a contingency, give me some fucking credit here,” he argues. “It’s a little self-destructive sequence, a ransomware mimic – forget to key the password into the dialog box that pops up every five minutes and you’ll get locked out, and all the files on this laptop will self-encrypt. Only I have the keys, so even if – _if –_ he manages to resurface, he wouldn’t get far.”

“Elliot can do a lot more damage in five minutes than we can afford to fix,” she cuts in, heat gone from a simmer to a boil. “And you of _all_ people should know how much easier it is to destroy than it is to build – you let Elliot in after he was discharged from the hospital, and within the space of an evening he closes the backdoor, and then you, me, Tyrell, we had to work through the night for _weeks_ to make up for your slip. There’s no room for error anymore, you don’t get that luxury – you fuck up again, this close to the deadline, there’s no way we can salvage this. So, I am going to put away these fucking carrots, and you are going to put that laptop away, and we are going to sit down and watch a fucking movie, because maybe you don’t understand the concept of relaxation but _I do._ ”

Well, that sure was… something. “Yes, ma’am,” he replies after a beat, lifting both hands off the keys as a peace offering, still trying to process what the fuck just happened. “Can’t argue with a woman with a root vegetable.”

She blinks, looking down at the carrot in her hand, as if she forgot she was trying to stab him with it through the air not twenty seconds ago. “Good,” she says, breathing out heavily and giving him a single nod. “Great. Okay. I’ll get started on the popcorn.”

*

“So, what’s your pick?” he asks, as they’re settled on the couch in front of the TV, popcorn cooling in a bowl on his lap. An HDMI cable winds its way over to Angela, who, having successfully confiscated his laptop, as though he was some fucking child being grounded for sneaking out after curfew, is sure rubbing it in by taking her sweet time scrolling through the contents of her hard drive – on a _MacBook_ , for fuck's sake.

“Elliot and I were meant to get high and watch _Back to the Future II_ ,” she says, her voice going a little misty at the edges. “That kind of got derailed with… everything that happened. I mean, getting high probably isn't the best idea for this situation, but…” She trails off, fingers stilling at the trackpad, mind evidently looking elsewhere, and he’s left to stare at her cursor on the TV screen hovered over the icon for _Babe: Pig in the City._

Somehow, it doesn’t feel right to intrude upon something reserved for Elliot, and by extension, for Elliot-and-Angela. Now that they’re split, living separate lives, he doesn’t want the boundaries to blur. “Nah, pass,” he replies. “Got a second choice?”

Angela blinks, coming back into the present. “ _Pump Up The Volume_ ,” she says, after a moment. “Any objections?”

“Jury’s still out, awaiting further evidence,” he responds. “Load it up, and we’ll find out.”

“Huh, I thought I had it on my hard drive,” she says, frowning down at the screen. On the TV, her cursor weaves between _Pulp Fiction_ and _Quantum of Solace._ “Guess not. Can you find a decent torrent?”

“Seriously? ‘Can I find a decent torrent’?” he repeats, indignant. “Sure, can Stephen Hawking teach a fifth grade science class? Shall I take my Ferrari down to pick up the kids from soccer practice? This is degrading. You confiscate my laptop, have me sit on my ass for the rest of the weekend twiddling my thumbs instead of working on Stage Two, and now you’re graciously permitting me computer access so I can type four words into a search bar on The Pirate Bay.”

“Is it possible for you to not be an asshole for like, five minutes?” Angela mutters. “Fine. I’ll—wait, hold on.” She brings up the Netflix home page, typing _ollie.p.parker@gmail.com_ into the email field. “Let’s see if he – nope, hasn’t changed it. Why am I not surprised.”

“This is your ex-boyfriend’s account,” he clarifies. Angela hums the affirmative as she scrolls through his recommended titles – fucking hell, there’s at least three different Adam Sandler flicks alone. “Well, good to know he’s still a fucking moron. You sure dodged a bullet there. Or,” he pivots, reconsidering the context, “I suppose, given how that all played out, got that bullet lodged in you removed before it was too late.”

“Mm, you’d know,” Angela says dryly, as she types in _Pump Up The Volume_.

*

_“You ever get the feeling that everything in America is completely fucked up?”_

“Hear, hear,” he says, as the title sequence starts playing. “But don’t you worry, buddy, we’re gonna fix that.”

“Look, are you going to talk the whole time?” Angela asks.

“Sure, if I’ve got something to say,” he replies. “What’s the point of art if it doesn’t invite discussion? What’s the point of anything, if all you do is sit there, mindlessly consuming, because it gives you something to briefly distract you from the toxic mundanity of your existence, as we hurtle ever faster towards the grave? No, Angela, I will not go gently into that good night, not if I have a say in it.”

She sighs, and then her phone lights up on the table – he can’t quite make out, from this distance, who’s contacting her.

“Any updates?” he asks, as she checks it.

“No, this is just work,” she replies, scrolling through the message. “Nothing new since Friday.”

“I don’t like this,” he says, tapping his fingers against the bowl. “This was my plan, _my_ revolution, I should be involved, I should _be there_ for the execution. I don’t like not knowing what they’re up to. Especially Tyrell. We didn’t exactly end up on the best of terms the other night.”

“Irving is handling him,” Angela says firmly. “Everything is going to be fine, okay? This is still your plan – you, me and Tyrell have looked over every detail, every last line of code, and once the papers are shipped in tomorrow night all that’s left to be done is to set it in motion. It makes sense for the Dark Army to execute remotely, decreases the risk of us being caught in the crossfire, you don’t need to be in the room for that – it’s just a few clicks, a child could do it. Remember, this weekend is just about waiting it out. If anything changes, you will be the first to know.”

“Fine,” he grumbles, shoving a handful of popcorn in his mouth. She shifts focus back to her phone, and he watches her for a moment longer before turning back to the TV, just as the voiceover transitions into the main character talking into a microphone.

_“Yeah, I can smell it. I can almost taste it. The rankness in the air, it’s everywhere—”_

He wrinkles his nose. “Oh, _that_ guy’s in this?”

“Who, Christian Slater?” Angela says, looking up over her phone as the monologue continues. She finishes her text and slides it back onto the coffee table. “Not a fan?”

“Of his works? No, I like them well enough, _Heathers_ is great,” he says, tossing a piece of popcorn in the air. “There’s just something about his face that makes me hate him. You know, when you look at a guy, and he has a face that’s just asking for a fist? This guy. He always looks so smug.” He points an accusatory finger at the TV. “What have you got to be so smug about, huh? Besides the fact that you’re probably jerking off to that fat royalty check in the mail every month. I mean, we all know that’s what all the Hollywood schmucks are doing, tugging it to their stacks of cash, but you don’t have to wear it right there on your face so I’m reminded of the fact every time I see it. And it doesn’t help that he spends half the movie miming the act, it just makes it so stupidly meta, Christ, I need to build a fourth wall in my brain and kick over a bucket of bleach – also, by the way, what the _fuck_ , I can’t believe you actually watched this as a child, you—”

Angela makes a noise, and he looks over to see her covering her mouth with one hand, eyes still fixed on the TV. “What?” he asks her, throwing up his hands. “Am I wrong?”

“He has a fine face. I think he’s very handsome,” she demurs from behind her hand, but there’s something in her voice—

He shoots her a narrow glare. “Are you— _laughing_ at me?”

A muffled giggle escapes through the gaps in her fingers, and evidently she gives up on the whole façade, just fucking giddy with glee. “I—you just spent a whole minute blaming Christian Slater for making you imagine him masturbate,” she says, between breaths. “How am I _not_ supposed to find that funny?”

“Shut up,” he retorts, grabbing a piece of popcorn and throwing it at her. It bounces satisfyingly off her head, though, unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to notice.

“And, yes, I guess it’s not the most child-friendly piece of cinema,” she continues, after she’s composed herself. “Though, I didn’t actually understand a lot of the context until I was older, like, I was always confused about how all the characters were so scandalized by him just clapping into the mic. Anyway. Not my fault that Dad left the VHS tape sitting out where anyone could find it.”

She’s silent, for a moment, and the movie plays on. “It helped, in a way. With my mom. There’s a line, that’s always stuck with me – ‘the terrible secret is that being young is sometimes less fun than being dead.’ See, they don’t approach death in a way that’s nice, and polite, and full of platitudes – it’s angry, and messy, and it’s okay to want to just—” She suddenly leans over to the laptop, clicking forwards a few times.

 _“I’m sick of being ashamed. I don't mind being dejected and rejected, but I'm not going to be ashamed about it.”_ She mouths along with him. _“I mean, you look around, and you see nothing is real, but at least the pain is real. You know, even this show isn’t real? It’s just me, I’m using a voice disguiser, I’m a phony fuck just like my dad, just like anybody—”_

“Wow, I’m sure your dad was thrilled with all the colorful additions to your vocabulary,” he says, amused.

“Well, obviously I was still old enough to know what words I could use and what words I needed to keep secret,” she replies. “Now, shut up, this is one of the good parts.”

Christian Slater yells and jumps around his shitty teen basement, and cut around him various other teens scream and rage and blow up their microwaves. He’s not sure if he actually has context for it or not, since Angela probably skipped through some exposition back there, but he finds himself just enjoying it for what it is – raw outpouring of emotion, of riotous energy, kids casting off their societal chains and tasting pure freedom and all the good, the bad and the ugly that comes with it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever told Elliot this,” Angela murmurs. “But after I watched this scene for the first time, I went into the kitchen and smashed every plate in the sink. It felt so good to not be perfect, for a moment. To let myself be angry at her death the way I wanted to be, on my own terms.”

“Yeah? And how did that turn out for you?” he asks. Slater has now calmed down, and is talking to some sad gay kid, who has written into Slater’s fap-happy pirate radio gig about getting humiliated by some bullies. This scene would definitely be more entertaining if the kid was more proactive and introduced their tight little bigot assholes to the business end of a knife, like a certain someone he knows (if there’s one thing to be said about Leon – boy’s got _style_ ).

“Got me grounded for two weeks,” she replies. “And my first therapist. But I didn’t regret it. Not one bit.”

“Well, what we’re gonna do will break more than a few plates,” he says. _But will you regret this?_ hangs in the air, unspoken.

“That it will,” she agrees, and in his peripheral vision he sees her smile, popping a piece of popcorn into her mouth. Fuck yes, Angela. Break free of your corporate box and get a little wild, invite some chaos into your life. There’s revolution in the air, so if there’s any time for it, there’s nothing like the present.

*

Somehow, they keep this train chugging along until well into the night. His pick is next – he chooses _Snakes On A Plane_ , just to fuck with her a bit, but it turns out she just _loves_ snakes, because of course she does, so that backfired somewhat, aside from the fact that _Snakes On A Plane_ is actually pretty fun if you really embrace the hammy acting and ridiculous plot. Angela parries, picking a recent release called _Jupiter Ascending_ , a large proportion of which he spends loudly trying to work out at what point in time since _The Matrix Trilogy_ were the Wachowskis secretly killed and replaced by doppelgänger hacks, as Angela sips her appletini and coos over werewolf-angel(?)-in-rollerskates Channing Tatum. He then counters with _Sharknado 3_ , which is definitely a mistake, and then they have to both suffer through all excruciating ninety-five minutes of it because neither of them are willing to budge on their unspoken cinematic war. A victory for him, maybe, but a Pyrrhic one nonetheless.

At this point, Angela tries a different tactic and puts on _Crazy, Stupid, Love._ Which. Though she rightly guesses that he fucking hates romcoms, isn’t actually the worst film he’s ever seen. Two appletinis down, and Ryan Gosling’s abs look very inviting – I mean, shit, he wouldn’t mind cracking off a cold one or two from that six-pack. Angela, as with most things in her life, has terrible fucking taste, and won’t stop going on about love-of-her-life Josh Groban, who plays some shitty bit character who is literally in the film for like five minutes before Emma Stone sees the light and shacks up with Gosling.

“Fuck, marry, kill,” Angela asks him, as the credits roll. “Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Josh Groban.”

They’ve long since migrated from the couch to just a pile of cushions on the floor, Angela on her second whiskey, with a few more drinks under her belt besides that. He’s nursing his third appletini, lightly buzzed but not risking the push past that, because Angela was right, unfortunately – he has to set limits, here, has to do his best to keep being present. Still, it’s nice, floating in that twilight space, everything a little blurred at the edges, as though it’s just him and Angela in their own private bubble, fortified with cushions.

“Are we really doing this?” he grumbles. Angela gives him a somewhat wobbly, but mostly very serious look over her glass. “Ugh, fine. Well, straight off the bat, strike marriage out of the equation.”

“Aw, no, not going to settle down?” she teases. “No two-point-five kids and a white picket fence in your future?”

“First off, the entire concept of monogamy is bullshit,” he replies, and _yes_ , he is going to actually give her a serious answer. “It’s an archaic evolutionary tactic to boost survival rates among Neanderthals that has no place being the gold standard in 2015, in the same way that we don’t kill a mammoth and spend the rest of the year eating hairy elephant ass for every meal — newsflash, supermarkets exist now, there are like fifty different varieties of beans, literally just _beans,_ so it makes zero sense to pledge your undying commitment to a can of Spam, I mean, shit, even if it’s something you actually _enjoy_ , you’d get absolutely sick and tired of eating it and nothing else until you keel over and die. So, on that note, it’s pretty obvious why most of our parents spend the rest of their lives fucking hating each other if they’re not a part of the fifty percent who cut ties before it’s too late, because, yes, alongside the great lie of the picture perfect nuclear family, the modern factory-line industry of marriage is just a capitalist cash cow where everybody thinks they’re getting milk, but in reality? That sure ain’t a teat they’re sucking on.”

“Ew.” Angela, very unsubtly, rolls her eyes. “Oo-kay. Fuck, fuck, kill then.” She giggles. “Huh, that sounds like a really messed up version of ‘duck, duck, goose’.”

“Alright, now we’re talking,” he says. He takes a quick mouthful of his cocktail, swirling it around so each fruity note plays across his tongue. “Fuck Gosling, fuck Stone, kill Groban. Done.”

“ _Wow_ ,” Angela replies, leaning back, one hand against her heart. “Wow. You’re such a dick. How can you kill Josh Groban?”

“Breaking news! What a scoop. Angela Moss, come and claim your Pulitzer,” he says. “And, to answer your question: very easily. Groban is clearly the least attractive of the three, and so by the metric of this game it condemns him to death.”

“The _correct_ answer,” she says firmly, barreling over him as if he’d never spoken, “Is fuck Ryan, marry Josh, and, well, if I have to kill someone, I guess I have to kill Emma, but I’m sure she’s lovely. Actually, no, okay, if you get two fucks then I do to. Fuck Ryan, fuck Emma, marry Josh.”

“Great,” he says, dryly. “Well, I for one am _so_ glad that’s been established, so we can never revisit this stupid—”

“But that’s the shitty thing about movies,” Angela interrupts, _again_ , gesticulating wildly with her glass. “They just—they promote unrealest, sorry, unrealistic, expectations. Like, every guy I date is some _fucking_ asshole who always ends up cheating on me, and then, it’s like, it’s such a _waste_ — like, I’ve wasted years of my life invested in this doomed relationship that’s gone nowhere, you know? Like, I’m never getting that time back.”

“Okay,” he says, eventually. “Here’s a revolutionary thought: perhaps, consider, not dating assholes.”

“Fuck off,” she says, scowling, and tosses a pillow at him. It misses him by a good foot, tumbling over to bump gently against the back wall. “That’s the point, you don’t _know_ that they’re assholes. Not at first. On the surface, they’re always so _nice_ , and they care about your day and give you little footrubs after work, and then out of _nowhere_ they suddenly turn it all around and it’s like, great, here we go, just another carriage on the fucking asshole train, destination me.” She sips at her drink, pumping her left fist up and down. “Choo, choo.”

“If something looks too good to be true, it usually is,” he tells her, setting aside his drink. “Look, everything we see, everything we do, even, is manufactured and manipulated for purely selfish gain, it’s all controlled from above — we’re just performers in this puppet show, strung along by corporations to buy gym memberships and pills and a personality, told that _this_ is the only pathway to take to give your life any meaning, any single iota of happiness. So people put filters on Instagram pictures, remove the drunken messy photos from Facebook timelines, they cut and nip and tuck until their lives are this neat little package, all shiny and new, but it’s all empty silicon, baby! You pop open that bad boy and you’d better hope it’s hollow, that there ain’t something rotting inside, because perfection is just a lie they feed to you, a drug you’re bottle-fed from birth, raised as an addict to crave this artificial fantasy that doesn’t actually exist. And if you think one day you’re gonna find Mr. Right, that one perfect guy, then honey you’re just chugging that Kool-Aid, just as fucking delusional as everyone else.”

Angela stares at him for a moment with her big spooky blues, and then snorts. “You’re soooo pretentious. You know that? Not everyone is as deeply miserable as you are. Besides, Josh Groban? Would _never_.”

“I can guarantee you that Josh Groban is _absolutely_ just as much of an asshole as I am,” he retorts, raising his glass, and she mock toasts him with hers.

“Well, I choose to believe he’s not,” she replies, finishing up her drink. “That’s the reality _I_ want to be in.”

“Unfortunately, kiddo, that’s just how it is,” he says. “You can’t just close your eyes and make a wish and your fairy godmother will float down on a gumdrop carriage and make it so. You can’t close your ears and go _la-la-la_ like a child who doesn’t want to front up to all the ugly in the world. Love, whatever kind you’re looking for? Well, it only exists on Hallmark cards, and in the real world we just gotta take what we can get from the scraps.”

Angela shrugs, and then smiles. A Mona Lisa smile, one that holds a secret.  “Maybe so. But that’s not my destiny.” Before he can interject, push his point deep into her chest, _how do you know? How can you ever be sure?_ she keeps going. “And, you know what? I don’t want to live in a world where everyone’s as cynical and jaded as you, _old man_. Because,” she hiccups, ending it in a giggle, “That’s what you sound like, you grumpy fuck, like you’re pushing eighty, not long until you start yelling at kids—” and at this, she cups her hands over her mouth, imitating a megaphone, _“Get off my lawn, you capitalist piglets!”_  

“Okay,” he says, shaking his head, grinning in spite of himself as she yells out _“you bourgeoisie microscum!”_ in a shitty imitation of an elderly man, “You’ve definitely had enough for tonight. I mean, you _are_ wrong, but for the sake of having an actual coherent debate about it, let’s table this for another time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Christian Slater canonically exists in the Mr. Robot universe and yes, the Moss family absolutely had Pump Up The Volume on VHS, [thanks to this fun joke the props people made in 3x06](https://i.redditmedia.com/80BDbJv-zQ_xfxDcw6rmRLPIoN6KuUSV7r2GQIycyUQ.jpg?w=1024&s=d8e2b8255deba02d1434c718efe3f233) which I decided to go Full Meta Alchemist with :P


	2. keeping up

Sleeping pills plus alcohol probably weren’t a good mix, especially when said pills may have been sourced through some sketchy side business the Dark Army is running for extra pocket money to fund their little global terrorism hobby. Still, it’s Sunday (probably), he’s alive (somewhat), and something smells really fucking good, so he’s probably not going to dwell much on that.

“Barbecue ribs, what fucking time is it, are those pancakes and are you going to share them because I will flip my absolute fucking lid if you hold out on me,” he tells Angela before he even opens his eyes.

“Good morning to you too,” Angela replies, and he carefully cracks his eyes open to spot her lithe figure, decked in jogging gear, bending over to place a plate stacked with pancakes on the coffee table. A set of plates and cutlery have already been set up, presumably when he was still out cold, and next to them are two tall glasses of orange juice, beaded condensation sparkling in the morning light. She’s somehow found the time to get over her hangover, go for a run _and_ cook a meal? Christ. It’s either pushing noon or she’s fucking Wonder Woman.

She comes over to the couch and shoves at his legs, indicating his time for a lie-in is being cut short and it’s time to budge up. He briefly entertains the idea of kicking at her instead, before considering that she’s wielding a knife, and he prefers his dick attached to his body rather than as a breakfast _hors d’oeuvre_. ”Thanks,” she says, sounding almost _peppy_ , as he begrudgingly levers his body up the y-axis, last night’s activities rolling heavily around his skull. She sits down on the couch next to him, dishing a few pancakes onto a plate and passing it over. “It’s nearly ten – you’ve woken up just in time.”

“In time for what?” he asks vaguely, grabbing eagerly for the cutlery so he can dig the fuck in. “Have you got maple syr—”

Angela has turned onto the TV and flicked through to a certain channel, and he drops his knife back onto the plate with a clatter. “No,” he breathes out, aghast.

“What’s wrong?” asks Judas-in-the-goddamn-flesh.

“I swear to fucking god,” he says, through his teeth, “I will leave, I’ll bring Elliot back right now and you can deal with whatever shit he brings out with him, I refuse to sit here and be subjected to this _filth_ , this—” She’s not listening to him, so he shakes her shoulder. “Angela, this is the worst of humanity. The absolute pinnacle! How can you just sit here and indulge this?”

“Eat your pancakes, don’t be so dramatic,” Angela replies, barely taking her eyes off the screen to acknowledge his very justified rage. “There are worse things in the world than the Kardashians.”

“No, there are no things worse in the world than the Kardashians, because people like _them_ are the causative agent for everything wrong with society,” he argues vehemently. “They are parasites, fucking black holes, stripping us all to the bone and giving nothing back, pulling vulnerable people into their orbit with the promise that their wealth is attainable, the great perversion of the American Dream, that to be rich is as easy as framing your life in front of a camera, except, oops, totally omitting the fact that they were _born_ rich, they’ve never worked a day in their fucking lives, and now they’re creating a whole generation of vapid, narcissistic clones devoid of any integrity, who will only seek to further cement their fucked up reality as the status quo by trapping us in this endless cycle, continually forcing us to ingest their toxic, materialistic _bullshit_ —”

Angela shrugs, cutting off a neat square of pancake and popping it into her mouth as he pauses for air. “Well, you can leave if you’d like, but the pancakes stay here. Up to you.” She picks up the bottle of maple syrup that’s been sitting tantalizingly out of his reach, letting it swing lazily in her grip.

His stomach makes a very jealous noise. “You’re killing me here,” he growls, eyeing up that bottle of syrup. A deal with the devil up for grabs, just to taste that sweet ambrosia. “Is this just some petty form of revenge for _Sharknado 3_? We ended this last night, I won fair and square, you can’t keep dragging this little tit-for-tat out indefinitely.”

“I have literally no idea what you’re talking about,” she says, frowning. Liar. This is classic Angela, a sweet, innocent paintjob hiding a cold and calculating core. “What does this have to do with _Sharknado 3_? Anyway, look, my life does not revolve around you. I have a day job with a career attached to it, in case you’ve forgotten,” she continues, as though that answer actually means something.

“So, what? Now you’re climbing the corporate ladder, you’re trying to ooze your way through the slime into the inner circle of the one percent? Is this like a fucking instructional video for you?”

“You’re very one-note. It gets old,” Angela informs him, and she picks up the remote, putting the TV on mute. “No, look, my role at E-Corp is in risk management, which _means_ when Stage Two is complete I’m the one who has to handle the fallout. I will have to construct a strategy that will be, at the very least, playing lip-service towards minimizing risk and safeguarding the company, while protecting our interests going forward until Whiterose’s project is ready to go.” At this her voice softens, and she gazes off into the middle distance. He knows jack shit about Whiterose’s mysterious ‘project’ that she’s brought Angela into – not that he cares overmuch, since it’s _his_ revolution that just happens to align with whatever weird shit the Dark Army want to achieve, and he’s happy to allow them to bankroll the operation as long as they don’t get in the way, but. It’s a stark reminder that even though he and Angela are on the same team, they’re not on the same page.

“So,” she continues, breaking out of her reverie, “In a way, you’re not wrong, it is instructional in a sense. Reality TV is a masterclass in framing events so they always play out to your advantage, and the Kardashians are the best of the best. Because the show reflects events that have already played out in the media, with each episode you get the opportunity to see exactly how they construct, frame and manipulate a narrative.” She picks up a notepad and ballpoint pen from the coffee table and flips to a blank page, drawing two straight lines from top to bottom, one close to the margin and one down through the center. “That’s the game – figuring out which scenes are real, and which are manufactured to create a cohesive story that plays exactly into the tone and image they want to maintain for the general public.”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” he says, begrudgingly. “But let the record state that I am _only_ participating in your sadomasochistic idea of entertainment because you’ve got me at gunpoint, here. So to speak.”

“Right, so, each scene gets a real or scripted score, based on if you think it was actually filmed during the timeline of the narrative or added in retrospectively,” Angela explains. She tears out the page she’s just marked and hands it to him, along with her pen, and, finally, the maple syrup. “I use R for real and S for scripted. The break between scenes is defined by a score change and shift in location, or by an ad-break.”

“Fine,” he says, grabbing the paper off her and dumping it aside in favor of the bottle of syrup. Fuck _yes._ He coats his pancakes liberally in it, stabs his fork through close to the edge and tears off a chunk. “What do I get if I win?” he asks, through a mouthful of pancake. _Fuck,_ they’re good. Fluffy as a damn cloud.

“ _If_ being the key word, there,” Angela murmurs. “Let’s see…” She rummages around in her purse that’s sitting at the foot of the couch and retrieves a new pen. “How about, the loser gets to do the dishes from last night. And this morning.”

“Come on, that’s bullshit, you were going to do those anyway,” he argues. “Wait, no, hang on. No, I see where you’re going here, this is a rigged system. You have no way of actually verifying what is real and what is fake. You may was well just be making this shit up as you go along.”

She gives him a very flat look. “Actually, the dishes were going to be _your_ job, since I made this meal. I’m being very generous leaving it up in the air. If you’re as good at what you do as you claim to be, then this should be a walk in the park. And, for your information, the internet exists. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but you can find anything on there. Literally anything. Including a _Keeping Up With The Kardashians_ fact-checker resource.”

“Holy shit, that might be the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” he replies. “My heart is bleeding for whatever poor, pathetic soul is pissing their life away maintaining that, just bathing in that open sewer like it’s a hot tub.”

“That’s the cholesterol,” she retorts, as she marks out new columns into her notebook. “Your diet is terrible.”

“No, _Elliot’s_ diet is terrible,” he says, licking maple syrup off of his fingers and setting his score sheet up on his knee. It still gets a little sticky, but whatever. “I don’t get much choice in that matter. Occasionally, when I get the chance, I eat a vegetable.”

“Your plate is a lake of maple syrup,” she points out, not inaccurately.

“Look, it’s from a fucking tree, it counts,” he argues. While they’ve been talking, a good chunk of the episode has passed, and now Kanye West is silently jumping around in a lake for some fucking reason. “Come on. Let’s get this over with. I know you’re dying to get right back in that kitchen.”

“Mm, we’ll see,” Angela replies, and hits rewind.

*

“Well, looks like it’s time for you to roll up your sleeves,” Angela says, with her fucking smug face, once she’s tallied up the final scores.

“No, you only won on a technicality,” he argues. “Kanye’s concert in Armenia actually happened, that does not count as a scripted scene.”

“It was filmed on the day when they were supposedly in Jerusalem,” she replies. “Manipulation of the timeline counts as scripting.”

“That’s an arbitrary rule you pulled straight out of your ass that stinks of the shit it brought with it,” he says. “If anything, that proves I’m right, and Kim read from the script in the scenes she insisted were on her last days in Armenia.”

“Fine,” Angela says, huffing a sigh. “Look, if you can’t concede defeat, we can make it best two out of three.”

“Double or nothing,” he challenges. “The initial dishes _plus_ cleanup after dinner tonight. _And,_ I get to pick the episode.”

Angela smiles, most likely to hide her fear, and flips open her MacBook. “Deal.”

*

The next episode he takes her to the absolute fucking cleaners, which is exactly where she needs to be because that’s what she’s gonna be doing for the rest of the day once he’s done with her.

“God, you’re such a Khloe,” she says, as she queues up the final episode.

Ha. She’s trying to distract him, rile him up, clearly threatened by his decisive victory in the last round. Well, he’s not going to play into her hand that easily. “Khloe is a fucking annoying bitch, I am _not_ Khloe,” he retorts. “If I have to be any of these vapid assholes, it’s gotta be Kourtney. She’s playing the game and doesn’t even try to hide it, she doesn’t give a single fuck, and she makes everyone else look like morons in comparison. Easy choice.”

“No, you’re one hundred percent Khloe,” Angela insists. “You have a short fuse, you’re loud and dramatic, and you get riled up and want to fight everyone. You don’t have anywhere near the amount of chill that it takes to be Kourtney.”

“Oh yeah? Well, who are you then?” he asks. “The momager, trying to control everyone?”

“ _Obviously_ I’m Kim,” she replies. “She’s the mediator, she keeps everyone’s shit together. Kris Jenner calls the shots behind the scenes, she’s the most powerful person in the room, so of course she would be Whiterose. Are you ready to start?”

“Game on,” he says, grinning.

*

“You cheated,” he says, incensed. “You’re a dirty fucking cheater, and you looked at my scores.”

Angela smirks, like the cat who got the fucking cream. “No, if I looked at _your_ scores, I would have lost.”

*

Angela takes the first shower, leaving him with the dishes to clean, which, in the end, doesn’t turn out to be that bad. It’s a warm day, the last dying embers of summer flaring up, and the cold water running in cool rivulets across his skin feels fucking amazing. This is another thing he misses when Elliot’s set up residence in the ol’ skin suit and he’s pushed off to the side, a shade of muted senses – feelings, sensations, pain-heat-cold. Touch. It’s nice to do something simple, tactile, a short looping script – literally, rinse and repeat. Sometimes life is too fucking big, and it’s easier to break it down into its base elements just to keep grounded. How many other people are out here, right now, doing the same thing as him – setting aside their worries, their grand aspirations, and syncing up through separate nodes across the globe, all united in one action? Would Kim Kardashian get to experience this, her perfectly manicured hands plunged into soapy water, feel its cool balm juxtaposed against a summer’s day as she scours scum from piles of plates? Or is she held forever separate from everyone else on the ground, her whole life just spent as a doll in a Barbie playhouse, invisible hands pulling the strings, any shred of real human experience whisked away on the backs of butlers, maids, chefs, producers and executives – a husk drained for entertainment, primped and primed until only the idea of her is left to sell to the masses on _E! Network_ , just as lonely as—

He drops a plate, which hits the edge of the sink with a sharp retort before splashing back into the water. Oh, _shit_. No, no, no, he did _not_ just think something even mildly sympathetic about _Kim fucking Kardashian_.

There’s a sharp intake of breath from behind him. “Elliot? What— what are you doing?”

“Washing dishes, what the fuck does it look like?” he retorts reflexively. Then, he reconsiders the context. “Sorry. Still me. That wasn’t a switch, I just had a thought that—look, it doesn’t matter, but on an unrelated note, don’t ever tell anyone that we watched the Kardashians or I will absolutely have to kill you.”

“Okay, duly noted,” Angela replies. “God, you nearly gave me a heart-attack. I know I told you the story about smashing plates last night, but that doesn’t mean I want a callback to—hey, you should be wearing gloves for this, you’ll burn your hands. Wait. Hold on. Did you seriously wash these in cold water?”

“Does the same job,” he mutters. He glances over his shoulder – she’s changed into heather grey leggings and a loose white top, drying her damp hair with a similarly pale-spectrum towel. Girl has _got_ to get some variety going on in her wardrobe. Although, he supposes that’s somewhat hypocritical, considering Elliot’s hoodie is practically the third personality attached to their body.

“It’s very inefficient,” she counters. “But, your call. I’m done in the bathroom, once you’ve finished up here.”

He rinses and stacks the last few dishes as Angela puts on a pot of coffee, and then heads into the bathroom. The steam of the shower does wonders for his pervasive headache, and he relishes in it, vaguely considers beating one out – because it’s been a while, and Tyrell’s snarl under the press of his hand at his throat is still tucked away in his spank bank, awaiting withdrawal – but that coffee smelled fucking incredible, and the promise of clearing out the last dregs of his hangover with a rich, hot brew is currently far more desirable than an orgasm.

When he gets out, Angela’s set herself up back in the living room, perusing something on her MacBook – interestingly, his Dark Army loaner laptop is also sitting, lid down, on the coffee table. There’s a mug of coffee atop a coaster next to it, and he grabs for it eagerly.

“Hey, I hacked Ollie’s Steam account,” she says nonchalantly, by way of greeting.

“It’s not hacking if all you’re doing is typing in a password you know that he’s forgotten to change,” he points out, gulping down a mouthful from a perfectly temperate cup of joe. God, _yes._ Definitely better than sex.

“I believe the definition of hacking is just gaining access to a system without the consent of the owner,” Angela replies. “Which is exactly what I’ve done. Anyway, I bought a few titles that looked interesting. And a few things just to mess with him – did you know there’s a game where you can date pigeons? Like, actual birds. It’s apparently very popular.”

“Sure,” he says vaguely, sipping at his coffee as his eyes stray back over to his laptop, running through the threads of various plans he had left off in his head, now ready to stitch into coherent code. But, where to start… “Well, you have fun with that. I’ll just set up here, I think there’s a program Tyrell and I were tag-teaming that needs some polishing—”

“Actually, I thought we could play something together,” she interrupts. “Co-op, you know? I haven’t played anything since I was a kid, on that old SNES I had, remember? Or, maybe you don’t, I don’t know,” she corrects, offhandedly. “Either way – it’ll be fun.”

“What, do you have a schedule planned now?” he asks, starting to get irritated. He returns his mug to the coaster. “‘All work and no play make Jack a dull boy’, so you’re filling up my afternoon with extracurriculars so there’s no wiggle room for me to ditch and go hang out with the wrong crowd, have a smoke with the sophomores behind the dumpsters?”

“Something like that,” Angela says noncommittally.

“Well give it a fucking rest already,” he snaps. “Let me back on the laptop, let me do my work, I _promise_ you Elliot is not going to interfere.”

“What I said still stands,” she replies. “It’s not worth the risk.”

“Jesus _fucking_ — what is your problem, Angela?” he bursts out. “What else do I have to do to prove I can handle this, that I have him under control, are you actually, physically incapable of getting off my dick for five fucking minutes?”

“No, because I know you, now,” she says coolly. “And I shouldn’t have left you alone yesterday morning, that was a mistake. You and him are so alike, in some ways. Your mind can’t just stop, can it? You always need something to fill in the gaps, that’s why when you’re not working you’re always talking about something, anything that comes into your head, just so you don’t have to be alone – with your thoughts, or otherwise. Coupled with your condition? Well, you can connect the dots.”

It hits him square in the chest, knocking the breath out of him, the force of it almost sending him a step backwards. He hesitates, for one brutal moment, before he bites back. “Fuck you, princess, I’m not going to sit for your armchair psychology session,” he snarls, letting the rage bring him back to his feet. “Elliot already has a therapist, and I don’t fucking need one.”

Before the split, there was always Elliot; the busy, jumbled, mess in his head, his conversations – spoken aloud, to his ‘invisible friend’, and, when he was present, with him. Now there’s silence in the spaces of his mind, and their black depths are fucking terrifying, and maybe, yes, there’s a part of him – and how can you have parts when you yourself are just a part, a Fibonacci spiral of fragmentation, this existential bullshit does his fucking head in – that _wants_ Elliot to come back, to let him in again, no matter what it will cost him.

God, he hates her, but, more than anything, hates that she’s right.

“I’m not trying to be that, for you,” Angela says softly. “Nor do I want to. That’s not my role in this. But as long as we’re working together, we need to help each other get to the end in one piece. All I’m trying to do is facilitate that. For your sake, for my sake, and for the sake of the outcome we both want to achieve.”

“Well, maybe you can start by keeping your nose out of places you don’t belong,” he bites out. “Angela Moss, always the bridesmaid, never the bride – oh, you’ve got ambition, but that confidence is just a mask and everyone can see it, only takes one movement of the wrist, and, _snap—_ ” he gesticulates, the movement sharp and brutal, and Angela stares back at him, expression unreadable, “—like the cheap, shitty plastic it is, crushed beneath the heels of lesser men. You think this is your proving ground? No, the only role you play in this, in _my_ revolution, is as a fucking babysitter. You have no power here.” He leans in, close, until he can almost feel her breath against his skin. “See? I can do this too. Oh, I can do this all fucking day. Don’t ever think to presume that you know anything about me, because you don’t. I’m _not him_ , and I never will be. Get that through your thick fucking skull.”

“I know, I didn’t mean to overstep,” Angela says. Calm, serene, unbothered, like nothing can get under her fucking skin – god, it makes him _so—_ “Just, sit down and play this game with me. Please?”

He stares at her, breathing heavily, and thinks about picking up his laptop and smashing it against the smooth surface of the coffee table, watching it splinter and crack, then taking her MacBook and sending it flying across the room, shattering the glass of a window, compromising the integrity of the perfect little box she’s living in, the one she’s caged him inside. He visualizes it, until he can feel the weight of the laptop in his hands, sees in the reflection of her eyes – big, blue, steady and unwavering – how the arc of destruction plays out, walls crumbling around them, fragments spinning out in slow motion, catching the light. Then he sits down next to her.

“I was thinking about playing _Portal 2_ ,” she says, as though nothing had happened, passing over his laptop. “I skimmed GameFAQs, it’s kind of like a puzzle-based game, apparently, and it’s got a co-op mode, so we have to work together to advance through each level. I think you’ll like it.”

“Can’t we just play Call of Duty, or something?” he says tiredly, flipping open his laptop so he can temporarily disable his anti-Elliot contingency. “Let me shoot the shit out of some zombie Nazis, that’ll get me all nice and relaxed.”

“Well, I do have Minecraft,” she offers. “I think there are zombies in it.”

“Hard pass.”

“Well, that can’t be right, that doesn’t sound like you,” she replies, frowning. “What did you say, the other night? Oh, yeah, _‘I am the architect!’_ ” she declares, in a faux deep voice.

The laugh that shakes its way out of him is unbidden, but genuine. He shakes his head. “Wow. This is how far we’ve sunk, is it? Did you seriously just blow a load of E-Coin on that game just so you could make that joke?”

“No, _Ollie_ just blew a load of E-Coin on this game,” she corrects. He looks over to her, eyebrows raised, and she smiles. “Just so I could make that joke.”

*

Completing _Portal 2_ in co-op mode ends up taking the rest of the afternoon, only pausing for snacks – and Angela takes his blithe comment on Elliot’s nutrition seriously, because of course she fucking does, and prepares shit like carrot sticks and celery with hummus which are both incredibly bland and deeply unsatisfying, so in retaliation he spends an inordinate amount of time dicking around with the portal mechanics so her character keeps falling to its untimely end. But he quickly gets bored of that, and of Angela making empty threats to beat him over the head with her MacBook (yeah, like her noodle arms could ever manage it), and does end up working with her to beat the game. The entire concept is problem-solving and teamwork, which is genuinely engaging, even though it’s obvious Angela picked this as some kind of teambuilding exercise for the two of them — which, on paper, is annoying as hell, he’s not some fucking suit in an intern program. Still, she’s not a bad partner – they bounce off each other well, sometimes literally, and she’s the one to actually figure out the shoot-while-jumping sequence needed to get through the penultimate level. For some reason, though, her favorite characters, if you can even count them as characters, are the cubes. The _cubes_. She fucking loves those dumb, inanimate objects. GLaDOS would definitely take her ass in to test for whatever malfunctioning part of her cortex causes her to express affection for a _cube_.

“They are both adorable and functional,” Angela argues, as they start preparing for dinner. “And, unlike _some people_ , they know when to shut up.”

“It’s because they don’t even talk in the first place,” he retorts, crossing his arms and leaning against the bench. “It’s like saying you’re head over heels for a fucking paperweight. Yes, it holds paper very well, and no, it will never love you back. It’s a glorified rock.”

She rolls her eyes, smiling, as she gathers up the garbage bag from the night before and ties it off. “Well, you and this bag have a lot in common,” she says. “Seems you’re both full of shit.”

He presses a hand to his face, groaning deeply. “That is… that joke doesn’t even _work._ ”

“Now you’re thinking with portals,” she replies cheerfully, which also doesn’t—never mind. “But, hold that thought. I’m just going to take this down to the disposal.”

But it ends up being nearly fifteen minutes before she gets back, and by the time she comes through the door he’s started to pace, the lack of constructive tasks to do making him feel itchy. “Not Elliot, still me, barbecue ribs, whatever,” he says, in lieu of them wasting time doing the whole personality _Guess Who?_ song and dance, as she closes the door on the creepy red hallway outside the apartment. “What took you so long? Find a rock to make out with?”

“I actually just ran into one of my neighbors on the way up,” she says, tone deceptively casual. “You didn’t tell me that Darlene came here yesterday.”

“Oh, yeah, she was here,” he replies, watching her warily, trying to gauge her reaction. Fuck, yesterday morning feels like it happened a month ago. “She never got through the door, some old lady—”

“Mavis,” Angela supplies, washing her hands in the sink.

“—Mavis, whatever, anyway, she basically caught Darlene in the act of picking your lock and then talked her half to death. So, before you blow your load at me for omitting that encounter, first, nothing happened, Darlene never got to see me, _or_ Elliot, since I’m sure that’s your second question, and third, look – I was _going_ to tell you, but then you came in and started yelling and waving a carrot at me so I forgot, sue me.”

“Okay,” Angela says, and then retrieves the bag of carrots from the fridge.

“’Okay’?” he repeats, slightly uncertain, eyeing the carrots in case she decides to take one to his jugular. “That’s it? We’re not going to fight about this? You’re not going to give me some lecture about how I’m one nanosecond away from blowing this whole thing wide open with my irresponsible and reckless behavior?”

“I think, by now, we’ve reached the quota,” Angela replies. She runs the faucet, methodically washing each carrot. “If you say nothing happened, then I believe you. But,” she adds, and of course, that fatal ‘but’, he was never going to get through this scot-free, “I _will_ make you chop the onions.”

“I don’t feel like the punishment fits the crime, here,” he mutters, scowling. “Especially considering there was no crime, because nothing fucking happened.”

“You can still have that lecture, if you want,” Angela offers.

Neither option is particularly desirable, so he’ll choose eye trauma over her insufferable nagging. “Fine.”

“And we will have to manage Darlene,” she continues, bringing several onions on a chopping board over to him. “I don’t know what her motives are in coming here to look for Elliot, but either way, we have to play it safe. I’m going to give you your phone back tomorrow and if she calls, you can answer it, but… tell her you wanted to go off the grid this weekend, or something, clear your head. You can use the fact that you’ll be at work to keep it short, just enough to keep her from looking in any further.”

“That excuse won’t stretch too far – isn’t Elliot getting fired tomorrow?” he asks, peeling the skin off the first onion and starting to slice it up.

“Yes,” Angela says. “Mid-morning at the latest, but she wouldn’t know about that, so even if she wants to meet she’ll have to wait until the end of the day – if she presses for the lunch break, you can say you’ve made prior plans with me. There’s no reason to complicate this any further. Would you like me to go over the plan again?”

“Sure, whatever, anything to distract from the acid bath my eyes are having right now,” he replies, squinting down at the chopping board through a haze of onion-induced tears. It would be great if his glasses weren’t just a projection of his subconscious and actually provided some modicum of protection from onion juice straight to the sclera.

“Okay, so, you’re just going to sit tight until security escorts you out, as we discussed, and don’t make a scene,” Angela says, as she chops her way through the carrots with absolutely zero searing pain to the eyeballs. “Once you’re out, keep your distance from the data recovery center but stay in the area in case Irving and Tyrell need assistance with the execution, in which case I will contact you directly and escort you through any E-Corp facilities, since your card access will be revoked. Otherwise, go somewhere public, so that you have an alibi that can be corroborated by at least several witnesses concerning your whereabouts at the time the building comes down – but keep a low profile, get a Starbucks, or something. Make sure not to take your laptop out of your bag unless there’s an emergency, you don’t want anyone making assumptions about what you were doing during Stage Two once the dust clears and the feds look for someone to pin it on. And, if you need to call me, ring and let it dial once, hang up, and then immediately ring again. That way I’ll know it’s you calling, and not Elliot.”

“Good,” he replies, setting the chopped onions aside and pressing his face into the crook of his elbow for a moment, trying to alleviate the sting. “Everything’s in place, then. No change to the running order.”

“It’s really happening,” Angela murmurs, almost too low for him to make out. “Alright, pass over those onions,” she tells him, raising her voice back up to speaking volume. “We’ll toss those in olive oil with the carrots and set them to roast in the oven for about twenty, and in a couple of minutes I’ll get started on the steaks, but first—” She opens a cupboard, taking out two wine glasses and placing them on the benchtop, then pours out two healthy servings from a bottle of red, offering one to him. “A toast. To a better world.”

“To Stage Two,” he says, and taps his glass to hers.

*

Two steaks into the evening and two glasses of wine into the night, he heads into the bathroom to take a leak, and notices something out of the corner of his eye when he’s washing up – there’s a picture of a young Angela and her mother propped up against the mirror. He’s not sure whether she’s just put that in there now, or he just hadn’t picked up on it before. His memories are a muddled patchwork, haphazard at best – the clearest ones he has are also the darkest, ones Elliot didn’t want to deal with, shoved into a box and couriered to his doorstep with DO NOT RETURN TO SENDER in big red lettering stamped across them, his burden now to bear. It’s no sweat, he’s stronger than Elliot, anyhow, which is probably is the point – the nightmares of yesteryear don’t faze him much, especially now their bitch of a mother is slowly rotting away upstate. Still, he does remember Mrs. Moss, vaguely. A kind face in a time of anger and uncertainty, but ultimately, for him, she became a symbol of the inexorable tide of the destruction that E-Corp’s greed had wrought, slowly crushing everything in its path: once she was gone, it was only a matter of time before his own father was next.

When he comes back in Angela’s on the couch sipping her wine, his glass sitting neatly on a coaster atop the coffee table. “It’s kind of surreal, that this is happening,” she says, as he joins her. “I just came to the realization, earlier – I guess, before, there was only the plan, going step-by-step through each element, solving immediate problems but now we’re at this point, it’s hit me – we’re really going through with this.”

“That we are,” he replies, finishing up the last little bit left in his glass. He’s not much one for wine, but this one’s pretty good – it’s apparently a 2008 _Penfolds Grange,_ whatever the fuck that means, and they’ve made quick work of it as the evening has wound down. “So, whatever reservations you might have, air them out now,” he continues, “Because there’s no turning back from this, once we’re through. We’re maintaining forward motion, here, at maximum velocity, and you’ve gotta be all-in.”

“I guess… I’m nervous, about seeing her again,” she murmurs. “It’s been so long, and so much has changed… it’s weird, because all I’ve felt up until this point is excitement, like, this is the whole reason I’m going through with all of this, to finally destroy E-Corp and create our new world, to share it with her – and yet, now we’re here, I’m not sure if I’m ready.”

Her whole deal with Whiterose is bordering on obsession, at this point.  It’s somewhat disconcerting, but then again, he supposes that’s Angela – she’s just intense like that. “Look, Angela, don’t set your expectations too high on that one,” he cautions. “I don’t think either of us are going to see Whiterose again, at least, not in the immediate future. She’s not the type to just swing by to pop off some champagne for a job well done.”

Angela looks at him, frowning slightly, and then her expression clears. “Of course,” she says, finishing up her glass. “You’re right, Whiterose has more important things to do. Maybe we’ll just have to have our own celebration.”

“Maybe,” he replies, looking at her narrowly. He has an odd feeling that she wasn’t talking about Whiterose. But then, who else would it be? Darlene? No, that doesn’t quite add up. “But it might be a bit counterintuitive to our efforts to keep off the feds’ radar, if we’re toasting to a building being blown sky high.”

“Mm, perhaps not, then,” she says. “So, what about you? Are you ‘all-in’?”

He snorts. “Is the sky blue? Do bears take giant, steaming dumps in the woods? In case it wasn’t exceedingly obvious, yes, I am committed to the cause I painstakingly built from the ground up, otherwise, everything I’ve been doing for the better part of a year has been a giant fucking waste of—”

“What about Elliot?” she asks, and it throws him, a little.

“What _about_ Elliot?” he replies, frowning, after a beat. “There’s nothing there to discuss. Elliot doesn’t want this, doesn’t have the stones to see our revolution through to the end, fine. That’s just how it is. It’s what _I’m_ here for. Once Stage Two is complete, he’ll understand how all of this is going to help set humanity straight, pull the wool back from the eyes of the people and the one percent off of their decaying pedestals, bring the world back to its rightful balance. He’ll see the bigger picture.”  But it doesn’t sound as assertive as it did in his head – shit, that last part came out almost _plaintive_. What’s wrong with him? Is it the wine? It’s got to be the wine. “Even he can see that we’re doing good here,” he continues, putting some more fire back into his tone, “That we’re saving the world. He’ll come on board.”

“I hope so,” Angela says softly. “Maybe, when he gets to see—” and the lights above them flicker and then go out, pitching the apartment into darkness. “Brownout,” she murmurs, after a moment. “Haven’t had one of these in a while. Wait here, I’ll grab some candles.”

He lets out a long breath, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. The silence is broken by the long note of a police siren, rising and then fading out into the distance, and then Angela reemerges with two fat candles held together at her chest, casting warm light across her face. There’s a weird sense of déjà vu about it – thinking back to his discharge from the Dark Army Field Hospital for Workplace Disputes Involving Firearms, all those months ago, heading out on their first night as partners for Stage Two, and now here they are.

She places the candles on the table in front of him, and sits down, closer than before. It’s a primal thing, the idea of huddling around a fire – sharing comfort as a resource, as valuable as food and shelter. There’s a slight pressure on his shoulder, and he looks down to see the crown of Angela’s head resting against it, her hair gently settling against his jacket. He tilts his own head back, sinking into the couch, and watches the light of the candles flicker in patterns across the ceiling.

“You’re not going to be alone, you know,” Angela says softly, the words reverberating through this shoulder. “After tomorrow. None of us are, okay?”

“I know,” he replies. He doesn’t know whether that’s really meant for him, or for Angela’s own peace of mind. But tomorrow, for better or worse, is where their partnership ends.

There’s a low hum, and the ceiling light flickers back into life, burning a dull circle into his retina even as he drops his head back down, blinking heavily. The movement dislodges Angela and he feels her shift away, the warmth on his right side tapering off, and then she’s collecting their empty wine glasses and taking them back into the kitchen.

“Alright, I’m going to head in, and you should too,” she says, once she’s placed the glasses at the sink. “We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow, we need to be well-rested.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he replies, stretching out on the couch. “I might stay up a little longer.”

“Do you need anything?” she asks, on her way over to the bedroom.

“Nah, I’m all good here,” he replies.

She nods in acknowledgment. “Sure. Goodnight, then. Don’t stay up too late, okay?”

“Hey, Angela,” he calls out, and she pauses at her bedroom door, but he’s already forgotten what he intended to say. He casts around for something. “I—thanks, I guess. For handling everything. I couldn’t have gotten through this without you.”

She looks surprised, for a moment, and then a smile spreads across her face. “You’re welcome. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, alright? Sleep well. Oh, and don’t forget to clean the dishes.”

“Yeah, yeah, got it,” he mutters, rolling his eyes. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Angela repeats, and her door closes with a click. He pads over to the kitchen, looks over to the pile of dishes, sighs, and starts running the faucet.

 

***

 

He wakes into darkness, to walls soaked in deep blue, and he’s briefly seized by the cold vice of disorientation before he remembers – Angela’s apartment, laying low, waiting it out until Stage Two. If today’s Monday, he hasn’t lost any time, but they’re down to the wire now – he has to be sure.

In lieu of his phone, Angela left him a wristwatch on the side table, next to Qwerty’s tank – he picks it up, squinting, but there’s not enough ambient light to make out the positions of the hands. Sliding off of the couch, he takes the watch to the window, angling it to catch the light from the buildings nearby. The inset on the face says _29_ , and the hands glint at a little after six. Early, but not quite early enough to justify a little more shuteye.

Not that he probably could, anyhow, with nerves thrumming a steady baseline through his body. Today’s the day. He takes a couple of paces back towards the couch, retrieving his carton of cigarettes and a lighter – cracks the window, leaning out into the blush of cool autumn air, and lights up. It’s still too early for much to be going on – the city chatter is muted, a few echoed horns here and there, the rumble of a delivery truck heading to a routine stop. The calm before the storm. He breathes out a plume of smoke, watching it dissipate against the backdrop of another corporate high-rise apartment complex, practically a clone of Angela’s. Sky’s getting lighter, deeper blue melting into pale – won’t be long now.

When’s the last time he’s gotten to watch a sunrise – at least, through his own eyes, and not as a proxy for Elliot’s? Will he get to see another one? It’s fucking weird, to get so maudlin about this shit. And yet. There’s a part of him that wants to just stop time here, balanced on the precipice, before the future begins to set. Before society boots up from its resting state, and he resets the world to its factory settings. Whatever happens today, where does he go from here? Once all this is done – without direction, a target to focus, what is his purpose? How can he continue to exist?

In a way, he wishes Elliot was here, even if it could ruin everything he’s worked for – just to witness the final victory of the revolution they began together. They can’t fight each other forever. Maybe, once Elliot understands that he’s _right_ , that their cause is _right_ , then they could be whole again.

His cigarette’s down to a stub. He sighs, flicking it out of the window, watching it fall, a series of quick winks of burnt gold fading into the street below.

Time to get to work.

**Author's Note:**

> Unfortunately for them, Angela and Robot were only seeing what's in front of them -- not what's above them ;)
> 
> I have a ton of notes for this story that would absolutely bloat out this endnote section, so if you'd like to find out what episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians our intrepid duo watched, or what a 2008 Penfolds Grange is, and hey, isn't 'residual self-image' a term from The Matrix? then check out the [commentary for part I](https://earlywrites.tumblr.com/post/168385037220/theres-no-place-like-127001-commentary-part) and the [commentary for part II](https://earlywrites.tumblr.com/post/168385015720/theres-no-place-like-127001-commentary-part). And, on that related note, I made a Tumblr to host my fic masterlist for this pseud, so if you want to chat outside of the comments (and please, still leave comments!! I love them, and I love you) then hit me up at [earlywrites](http://earlywrites.tumblr.com) :D


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